


Written on Her Arm

by Cassie_Bones



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Clexa, Deviates From Canon, F/F, Soulmate AU, The One Where SoulMate's names are written on their wrists, bi as hell clarke, gay af lexa, tumblr inspired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-08 07:51:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6845905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cassie_Bones/pseuds/Cassie_Bones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soulmate AU: Soulmate's name is written on your wrist when you're born. Baby Clarke is very confused by this. Gay af baby Lexa is even more so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Written on Her Arm

**Author's Note:**

> I should be writing a new chapter of Arcadia, but I just graduated college and this seemed cute af so I wanted to write it. Fight me.

[BASED ON THIS POST](http://clehxa.tumblr.com/post/129957938801/ok-but-imagine-one-of-those-you-have-your)

 

Clarke still remembers the day her parents explained soulmates to her. She was four and had just started learning how to read in school. She knew how to spell her name and her best friend’s name, and a few simple words, like dog and cat—animals that she’d only seen in books and movies. She remembers looking down at the letters on her wrist and trying to sound them out, her lips and tongue fumbling over the funny word. She’d run to her mother, Abby, with a question in her eyes, her arm held up above her head.

“Mommy, what’s this say?” she asked, lisping slightly through the gap in her teeth where one of her incisors used to be.

Abby had crouched down and took soft hold of her daughter’s wrist, squinting as she looked down at the letters and ran her finger over them. Just four simple letters, slightly raised on Clarke’s skin, like a scar. A girl’s name on her daughter’s wrist—and one she didn’t recognize, despite having been at the majority of births on the Ark in the last decade.

“Lexa,” she said, finally, with a soft smile.

“What’s a Lexa?” Clarke asked, her nose wrinkling as her eyes squinted in confusion.

“It’s a name,” Abby had laughed. “The name of your soulmate.”

“What’s that?” She was such an inquisitive child, her Clarke; always asking questions.

“It’s the person,” a deep voice said from behind Abby, and she turned as her husband walked in, “that you’re meant to be with. The person you’ll marry one day.”

Clarke wrinkled her nose again. “ _Marry_?” she asked, then stuck out her tongue. “I don’t wanna marry!”

“Don’t worry, baby,” Jake laughed as he hefted his daughter into his big, strong arms. “You have plenty of time until that day comes. He caught hold of her wrist and raised it to his eyes. “But, one day, you’ll have a beautiful wife and her name will be Lexa.”

“That’s a funny name,” Clarke murmured, looking at her wrist. “I don’t know _anybody_ named Lexa.”

“One day you will,” Jake said, smiling as he looked down at his own wrist, where the prominent ‘Abigail’ popped out at him. “And you’ll be happier with her than anybody else in the world. Just wait and see.” He grinned at his wife, who smiled back and lifted up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, balancing herself with one arm on his shoulder. The name on her own wrist brushed against the fabric of his shirt.

Clarke covered her eyes with her chubby little hands and stuck her tongue out. She was never going to be that gross with her soulmate.

* * *

 

Lexa was twelve when she finally started thinking about the name on her wrist, her brows twisted up in a constant state of confusion at the masculine name, “Clarke”.

She’d known since she was six that she didn’t like any of the boys that she had trained with, nor was she prone to giggling in their presence like a lot of her comrades. Not like she did when a particularly pretty girl paid her any attention. Then, she blushed and stammered and forced herself to breathe normally. When she trained with Anya, she would not let herself look at any of the pretty girls that watched, knowing that they would be an unwanted distraction and Anya was not too keen about having a distracted warrior under her watch. She took every chance she could get to knock Lexa down and teach her a lesson.

Which is why it confused Lexa so much that the name on her wrist, which they were told as young children would point out their prospective life mates, sounded so…male. Had she been wrong about herself all these years? Did she like men as well as women? Or was this particular man supposed to be…special? Perhaps, she thought, tracing the letters on her wrist, he wasn’t so much a romantic mate as he was a comrade; somebody she would fight with for the remainder of her life. Perhaps her own second in command or one of her most trusted advisors.

Yes, that’s it, she thought as she grabbed her sword and headed out of her tent to spar with Anya and perhaps attempt to impress the dark-skinned girl who always seemed to be watching. “Clarke” would just be her advisor. Not her husband. She would never have a husband; it wasn’t possible.

* * *

 

“If you so much as look at her the wrong way, I will slit your throat.”

Clarke tries not to allow the fear she feels in the pit of her stomach show on her face. This man is twice her size and already intimidating enough as is. But to have her life threatened for simply “looking wrong” at a person…well, that’s a first. She must be special to him.

The man called Gustus lifts the tent flap for her and Clarke ducks beneath it, stepping as confidently as she can manage inside and walking, slowly and carefully, towards a young woman—only slightly older than herself—sitting in a throne that looks to be made of twisted tree branches and definitely cannot be comfortable. The girl, however, lounges, playing with a small dagger as if this is something she does every day. She has long brown hair that’s braided back and her eyes are covered in some kind of black soot, a gear-looking decoration set between her eyes, and her body garbed in black armor. Her fingers are long, Clarke notices and she feels her face heat up.

She begins speaking, abruptly.

“So you’re the one that burned three hundred of my warriors alive.”

Clarke straightens her back and lifts her chin. “You’re the one who sent them there to kill us,” she points out. Immediately, the girl stops playing with the dagger and places it—point down—onto the arm of her chair, her fingers still playing with the handle, twisting it with those long, deft fingers. Her head tilts to the side.

“What is your name?” she asks, and it’s more of a command than a question.

Clarke presses her lips together for a long moment, rebellion flaring up within her. She doesn’t like this girl—whom they call Heda, though Clarke doubts that’s _her_ real name—but one look at Gustus tells her that she doesn’t really have a choice here.

“Clarke Griffin,” she says, practically through gritted teeth.

At once, the girl’s fingers stop moving and her grip on the dagger fails, the weapon toppling to the ground, her green eyes widening in shock and something akin to…fear? It’s gone so quickly that Clarke thinks she may have imagined it. The girl composes herself in the next instant and takes a deep breath, nodding for Clarke to proceed.

Swallowing thickly, Clarke continues: “I’ve come to make you an offer.”

“This is not a negotiation,” the girl replies, coldly. There’s something different about her voice, Clarke realizes. It’s not quite as harsh, though that’s by no small effort on the girl’s part. For some reason, she seems to really be trying now to be cold. The dark-skinned woman next to her says something in an unfamiliar language and the girl raises her hand to stop her. The movement is so simple, but her words are silenced rather easily.

“I can help you beat the Mountain Men,” Clarke tells them.

“Go on,” the girl says.

Clarke explains her plan and nearly gets killed by the Head Warrior— _Indra_ , she learns—but the Commander’s orders stop her. It’s possible that the braid Anya had given her before her untimely death is what saved her but, from the look in the Commander’s eyes, it feels as if there’s something more there. Something in the way their fingers had brushed as Clarke handed her the small bundle of hair. But then the Commander offers her a challenge and Clarke bluffs, wagering not only her own life, but the lives of everybody she cares about—her people’s lives.

Still, she accepts.

* * *

 

Later, they’re back in the Commander’s tent. She voices her admiration of Lincoln’s recovery and it’s the first time Clarke sees her smile, however briefly. It’s a nice smile (when Clarke doesn’t think about the fact that her hands are probably covered with the blood of hundreds, if not thousands). The Commander keeps steady eye contact with Clarke as they talk, going over their plans to rehabilitate the reapers and conquer Mount Weather. It’s almost unnerving how her cool green eyes never leave Clarke’s and the blonde tries not to shiver or blush as they speak, keeping her voice even and her breathing calm as they speak.

Then the Commander asks for Finn and Clarke’s heart drops to her stomach. She has no choice but to agree, feeling the pain inside her radiate until her entire body is vibrating. She keeps her spine straight and her eyes dry as she agrees, though something tells her that the Commander can see right through her. Finally, Clarke nods.

“Okay,” she says, proud of how her voice doesn’t falter in the least. “Deal.” Her entire body feels like it’s been bathed in ice.

The Commander nods and Clarke knows that she’s being dismissed. She turns to go, then suddenly a thought comes to her and she turns back. “Commander?”

“Yes, Clarke?” The ‘K’ at the end of her name is enunciated by the click of her tongue.

There are a million things Clarke would like to ask right now—bartering or outright pleading for Finn’s life is about half of them—but instead she takes a deep breath and says, “What’s your name?”

The question seems to take the Commander by surprise, her eyes widening slightly. It’s an odd question, no doubt about it, but she hesitates for only a moment. “Alexandria,” she informs Clarke. “It’s the name I was given at my birth, though I’ve always been known, and I would prefer to be known, as Lexa Kom Trikru.”

_Lexa_.

Instinctively, Clarke wraps her hand around her opposite wrist, the letters there seeming to burn into her palm. Her heart hammers in her chest, but Clarke forces herself to simply nod.

“Lexa,” she echoes, taking a deep breath. “Nice name.” It’s a ridiculous thing to say, but Clarke doesn’t know what else to do; what else to say. All she can do is turn on her heel and practically sprint out of the tent, every part of her body aching for multiple reasons.

_Most of all,_ she thinks, _is that my soulmate is about to kill the boy I love._


End file.
